Coordinating care in Florida

Waivers

What are Florida's HCBS waivers?

Developmental Disabilities Individual Budgeting (iBudget) Waiver

Florida's single IDD waiver — 'iBudget Florida' — run by the Agency for Persons with Disabilities under AHCA's 1915(c) authority. It gives each participant an individual budget with flexibility to choose medically necessary home-and-community services. Eligibility requires a qualifying developmental disability with onset before age 18 (intellectual disability, severe autism, cerebral palsy, spina bifida, Prader-Willi, Down syndrome, Phelan-McDermid, or high-risk ages 3–5).

Statewide Medicaid Managed Care Long-Term Care (SMMC LTC) program

Florida's long-term-care HCBS for elders and adults with disabilities runs through managed-care plans rather than a standalone waiver brand — AHCA administers it, DCF determines financial eligibility, and the Department of Elder Affairs determines medical eligibility and level of care through the CARES assessment, with its own prioritized wait list.

• Florida calls its IDD waitlist 'pre-enrollment' (s. 393.065(5), Florida Statutes). Seven statutory priority categories order enrollment offers — crisis first, then child-welfare involvement, intensive needs, aging caregivers (60+) with no alternate, school-leavers within 12 months, then everyone else — with dates of eligibility determination ordering within categories.
• Scale, honestly dated: a Florida House staff analysis (March 2025, citing APD's own quarterly report) put the pre-enrollment list at 21,471 people as of December 1, 2024; APD's live application page currently says 'more than 23,000 individuals waiting' without a date. Florida was the one state that did not respond to KFF's 2025 waiting-list survey.

Agencies

Who runs services in Florida?

Agency for Persons with Disabilities (APD)

Determines developmental-disability eligibility, runs iBudget Florida and the pre-enrollment process, and handles applications and crisis enrollment through regional offices.

Agency for Health Care Administration (AHCA)

Florida's Medicaid agency — holds the federal waiver authorities and administers Statewide Medicaid Managed Care.

Early Steps (Florida Department of Health)

Florida's early-intervention program: services for infants and toddlers from birth to 36 months with delays, disabilities, or at-risk conditions, at no cost to families.

School

What's specific about IEPs in Florida?

• Florida's official term for special education is Exceptional Student Education (ESE), administered by the DOE's Bureau of Exceptional Education and Student Services.
• The Family Empowerment Scholarship for Students with Unique Abilities (FES-UA) gives families of students with disabilities — as young as age 3 — an education savings account usable for private tuition, tutoring, and other approved services.